Abstract

Fermi’s success at finding pulsars is eclipsed by its success at finding evaporating (black-widow-type) millisecond pulsars. I summarize the current Fermi black widow sample, the evidence that there are more black widows hidden in the unidentified sources and the prospects for further black widow discovery. These results clear up some misconceptions about black widows from the pre-Fermi era and improve our understanding of pulsar evolution. But even more importantly some of these binaries, e.g. J1311-3430, have outrageous parameters and promise new probes of extreme pulsar physics